The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Feedback control systems in general, and for power supplies in particular, have performance and stability limitations caused by unknown component values and variations in the component values. Accurate measurements of several key system parameters including the component values are necessary to achieve high-speed transient performance.
For example, in the case of power supplies, the output capacitance may be largely unknown since the power supply load has a capacitance that is in parallel to power supply output capacitance. Commonly, the load capacitance is in the form of a capacitance added to the load circuit to improve high-frequency characteristics. Unfortunately, the unknown load capacitance and possibly other components with significant tolerances are common occurrences in power supplies.
A similar problem can occur in motor control systems, for example, where the motor torque constant and the load inertia are generally not known with sufficient accuracy to allow for high-speed control of the motor. Measuring these unknown parameters allows for their compensation.